Moral Choices have a Vector, and Medical Appeasement has a Body Count

PRESS RELEASE [reprint]
North Carolina
Published September 10, 2026 at 7:18 AM EDT

State investment to expand hyperbaric oxygen therapy for North Carolina veterans with TBI, PTSD

PRE News & Ideas | By Annette Weston

A new state investment is set to expand specialized medical treatment for North Carolina military veterans suffering from the invisible wounds of war.

State Representative Wyatt Gable of Jacksonville has announced that $1.5 million has been secured in the newly passed state budget for the nonprofit organization HBOT4Heroes. The Jacksonville-based organization provides hyperbaric oxygen therapy to veterans diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Gable says the multi-million-dollar funding surge—passed with bipartisan legislative backing—will allow the Jacksonville group to scale up operations and expand access to this specialized therapy for veterans all across North Carolina.

Annette Weston. Annette is an award-winning journalist based in Eastern North Carolina. Her career includes professional stops across the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and Southeast, recently culminating in a 2026 Region 8 Edward R. Murrow Award for Small Market Radio Best News Series for her work on the Camp Lejeune Justice Act Series. Guided by a passion for human-interest storytelling, she focuses on narratives that touch hearts and connect communities. A mother of four and grandmother of two, Annette enjoys reading and creating epic Halloween costumes in her spare time. If you have a story idea to share, please reach out by email to westona@cravencc.edu.

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This new appropriation from the North Carolina legislature adds to funds appropriated on July 26, 2019 subsequent to House Bill 50/S149. The bill authorized prescription of HBOT therapy for veterans with TBI and PTSD. State legislation has already funded $1.5M. There are an estimated 31,161 TBI/PTSD Veterans in NC, 256 suicides per year and 2,380 with opioid use disorder. Statistics on the past three years reinforce the 30 clinical trials showing HBOT for TBI/PTSD is safe and effective. North Carolina is one of 14 states that have passed similar legislation, with appropriations totaling over $34.5 Million.

Extivita, a TreatNOW Coalition clinic in Durham, NC affiliated with HBOT4Heroes, has a waiting list of over 100 Veterans seeking HBOT treatment.

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In related news, St. Elizabeth Healthcare in Kentucky is proud to partner with HBOT4KYVETS, Inc. to offer FREE Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to eligible Veterans (active duty, retiree, or Veterans) who are current residents of Kentucky with medical diagnosis of either Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) or Post Traumatic Brain Injury (PTSD). Through a partnership with the state of Kentucky Legislative Branch and the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs (KDVA), eligible veterans can receive treatment at no cost at the Patrick T. Birrer Wound Care Centers in Covington and Ft. Thomas, Kentucky.

HBOT is a proven, nonsurgical treatment that accelerates brain tissue healing, with decades of research and 30 published clinical trials behind it.

KRS 217.930-942 enacted in 2018, granted eligible Kentucky Veterans (active, retired or any Veteran who has served in one of the six military service branches) with TBI or PTSD to state funded HBOT.

The poster that leads off this post was taken in Chicago’s O’Hare airport. It’s typical of a string of PSAs and videos and appeals from the VA and the 66,000⁺ VSOs allegedly helping Veterans. Take the bumper sticker appeal: “Patriotism. Support & Recognition. Quality of Life. Family.” Who can argue with the sentiment? But dig a little deeper to learn about the business of raising money to help veterans.

In the United States, an estimated $3.7 billion per year was donated to charitable organizations serving veterans, military members, their families, and caregivers in 2023, according to the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. That $3.7 billion represents only about 0.6–0.7% of all U.S. charitable giving (total U.S. giving was roughly $557 billion in 2023, per Giving USA). Separately, watchdog groups (Charities for Vets) have flagged that a large share of veteran-charity dollars goes to lower-rated organizations — over $960 million went to poorly-rated veteran charities in 2021 alone, nearly triple what well-rated groups received that year.

[NOTE: Some VSOs are doing a phenomenal job helping Veterans. TreatNOW supports all efforts to restore Veterans to health and wellness. But if the VA and the DoW and all these VSOs were actually fulfilling their missions, why are the misery and suicides continuing the upward trend? And what more can be done, NOW?]

We are all free to give or not give to whomever we choose. Sadly, too few of the dollars go even to highly rated VSOs, and virtually none go to addressing one of the largest epidemics afflicting Veterans: Suicide. The DoW and the VA both declare that Suicide Prevention is their #1 clinical priority. Their multi-Billion dollar spending on talking about preventing suicide versus actually treating the brain wounds that afflict the despondent and depressed and undiagnosed and untreated Veterans — over 877,000 by our count — is a moral choice.

Citizens in fourteen states have made moral choices to call attention to Veteran brain wounds; seven have appropriated over $34 Million to help treat and heal.

Simultaneously, medicine, especially military medicine, has been appeasing the status quo for over twenty years. The standard of care for brain wounded Veterans, Reserves, and National Guard remains stuck in “mental health” ideology. The vectopr is stuck in “business and suicides as usual.” Palliation of symptoms, not scientifically-validated brain wound treatment with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, remains the failed policy for those under the cae of their Government, but who continue to lose hope and give in to suicidal ideation.

The Veteran body count due to suicide continues upward: 163,000 and climbing at 17-22 per day. The total KIA count since 9/11 in all theaters, including the current Iranian incursion, is estimated at 7,050, per the Costs of War Project and DoD casualty data. Sadly, the service member suicide number is more than 23 times larger.

Fortunately for those lucky tens of thousands who have gotten their lives back with HBOT, healing help in more and more states is doing the job the VA and DoW are chartered to accomplish. Their moral choices and continuing medical malpractice have to be exposed and reversed. Congressman Greg Murphy, MD, of NC reiterated this when he leveled this indictment in public testimony in 2025: “I believe it is medical malpractice not to offer this to our Veterans.”

Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW.

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The TreatNOW Mission is ending service member suicides. Along the way, we have learned that we can end suicidal ideation, help end symptoms of PTSD, get patients off most of their drugs, and heal brain wounds to end the effects of Concussion, BLAST injury, mild TBI, Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from Operator Syndrome, AHI, and Burn Pits. No Veteran or civilian has ever been killed or hurt while undergoing HBOT treatment for TBI/PTSD.

Information provided by TreatNOW.org does not constitute a medical recommendation. It is intended for informational purposes only, and no claims, either real or implied, are being made.